glittered with stars
by glossier
Summary: You're in love, or so they say. — Riley/Lucas/Maya


**_a/n:** a mixture of: flower usage and lucas perspective

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 **glittered (worlds) with stars  
** ( _your heart dances, offbeat, sporadic, and wrong. you're in love, or so they say._ )

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You settle into the haven that is your mattress topped with blue sheets (your mother would argue it's cerulean, but whatever) and you let the sigh escape, deciding that if Maya Hart were flowers, she would be gypsophila million stars.

You're good at this: settling. You're good at keeping your mouth shut, complaint-less, hushed, restricted. This is how life gets better, you think. You're pretty sure, almost sure.

Because Ma's happier, she is—despite the fact she has no room to garden and never has the chance to ask you to join her in the midst of her rosebushes to teach you of every plant that's ever been rooted into the earth's dirt. Those were more youthful days, though. Those were before anger catalysts and wrinkled collars and the horrors of peer pressure.

(She says you've improved. She says she's _proud of you,_ that she is blessed to have you as her son. And god, you will never forget the way she looked at you when those tearjerking words slip into the shells of your ears.

And all you want to do is better.

All you want to be is better.)

So, instead of following your instincts, your tendencies, the deliberate retaliations that stem from anger, sadness, annoyance, or any of the in-betweens: you shut your mouth. You smile. You follow those who are of high influence, those who help keep you grounded, out of that goddamned abyss of trouble you'd kept falling into way back when—the same black hole of profanities and gritting teeth, all coinciding with the furrowed brows and _right_ , don't forget the raspy voice and fists to the gut, where you must claw your way back out (tail a second away from being snatched into the confines of a cellar.)

Nice, Friar. It's always been Go Big or Go Home, right?

Wrong.

Because Going Big can land you in the worst of places. It can destroy the improvements you've made since traveling miles, state after state. It can massage tension into these pre-pubescent relationships you have made. And you can't have that.

In the end, you are left with one choice: settling.

And it's not too much of a problem, really, you convince yourself.

(Except for the fact that you lose sight of the true source that spurs the fiery ignition to any kind of emotional drive flowing through the blood of your veins.)

It's hard to distinguish the colors of your heart with the overwhelming leverage that your gut holds _along_ with your mind's vulnerability. In simpler definition, you choose not to. You let things be, watch as everything flows piece by piece. When things fall together, you don't question it. You have no say.

You are Lucas Friar: you are on a roll, you are becoming the son, the student, the human that anyone will be able to look up to. You have no say.

So, when a pretty blonde girl twirls in all her stylish glory, gypsypunk aura intact and eyes that paint her as an overall droplet of heaven and hell, finds her way up to you with a coy smile and (too) friendly salutations ( _oh yeah_ , you date her for approximately twenty-two seconds, apparently), you sit still. Smile, even—taking life as it is. (Except in this situation, you're in a tad too much awe that you'd been at a loss for words. Ah, pretty girls and their blatant, offbeat bursts of strange euphorias.)

And then this girl (her name is Maya, you learn) pushes this other fairy-like creature into your lap, and she is someone who smells of daisies and reminds you of sunflower fields and sugar. This girl, a quirky beauty with soft brown locks and legs for days, becomes irrevocably smitten with you.

And boy, does she show it. They call her Riley, and she calls you hers. And you take it with no mind. (No heart, no thought, no passion.)

It is all just simple, casual acquiescence.

This is how life works.

The truth is, you don't mind it—the attention, the fact that you are wanted, _liked_. When she kisses you, you only smile. When you date (albeit, a few hours, at most), you speak openly, honestly. You like her, you do. It's not a lie, not in the very least. You're fond of her, just as one can like dessert late at night or a cup of hot chocolate in December. It is easy, it is given, it is _there_. (You would be considered stupid to do anything else but be with her.)

And sure, you lose a little bit of yourself in every possible interaction that fate bestows you with revolving around the romantic interest that is Riley Matthews, since you are never even remotely close to taking the wheel, but it makes it—this _thing_ , all the more simpler.

But then: you become better acquainted with someone with no regard to personal space, that rest-assured, will always have commentary up her sleeve capable of making your blood boil if you let it, if you _had_ a say, you mean.

God, does she make you want to come out of this shell of labelled "Perfection" that these people have strung all over you since your arrival to this beautifully neon city. She makes you question it, _everything_ , without even realizing her power of you. And you admire her—you enjoy her company, her crazy spontaneity and ridiculous, batshit no-fucks-given demeanor, and you come to envy her, since she is everything you aren't.

Maya Hart is free: to live, to love, to saysay _say_.

She makes you think of eluding comfort zones, of passion, of speaking—because shit, being around her forces the realization that you have been accomplishing nothing worth doing.

And slowly, the pieces of the shell you have built that had once masked your walls in fear of breaking the "perfect" facade, are pried apart one by one by your own calloused fingers at the presence of someone who triggers much more from you than anyone. This girl, the strange blonde with her cavalier carelessness has you thinking of fantasy-esque possibilities. Because you might like how life is going, simple and sugar sweet, but you can't ignore (regardless of your attempts) this girl, who opens up door after door with spices and heat and venom and flight. She reminds you of plumerias, perhaps: new beginnings, glittered with baby's breath. She is eccentric and radiant and full of bloom, always.

It changes your way of thinking (breathing, living), if only for a little while.

And well, you suppose your mother had always loved gypsophila million stars, never missing to pair an arrangement with specks of so.

Everyone deserves a taste of the extraordinary surrealism the world can give once you've come out of your fear to express. And so you thank her for her presence, her unknown impact—but not with words, never with words. Instead, you smile when your green peas glaze over her sky-like oceanic irises and hope to heaven and hell that the rose you had once placed between her teeth is enough.

The next morning, you will interlace your fingers with Riley Matthews. You will proceed to avoid the inevitable dancing, sporadic rhythm in your chest when you catch sight of a familiar blonde.

And you do what you do best.

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 _fin._

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 **_a/n:** this came out much messier, shorter, and crappier than i planned :/ sorry and good night

(i also probably have a lot of typos…my bad)


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